California: Both sports wagering initiatives trail, while Newsom maintains a comfortable lead

· Leave a Comment

The latest Berkeley IGS Poll of Californians considered likely to vote in the November general election finds the two sports wagering initiatives, Propositions 26 and 27, trailing by significant margins six weeks before the election. The poll finds Proposition 27, the initiative to allow online sports wagering, trailing two-to-one (53% No vs. 27% Yes). Voters are also lining up against Proposition 26, a sports wagering initiative to allow in-person sports wagering on tribal lands, but by a narrower margin — 42% No to 31% Yes.

Incumbent Governor Gavin Newsom continues to maintain a sizable 53% to 32% lead over Republican challenger Brian Dahle in the November election for governor. CONTINUED

Mark DiCamillo, Berkeley IGS Poll

The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack

Republicans hold a near-historic lead on a key midterm indicator

· Leave a Comment

… We’re all used to polls that ask voters which issue is most important to them. Gallup puts the question to Americans open-ended, meaning a respondent can say anything from the mundane (e.g. inflation) to the inane (e.g. clowns).

Gallup, unlike other pollsters, has another twist on that question. They follow it up by pressing respondents to answer which party they think can better handle the issue that they just named as the most important.

Gallup’s latest data shows that 48% of Americans believe the Republican Party is best equipped, while 37% believe it is the Democratic Party.

This 11-point Republican edge is one of the best they have ever had. CONTINUED

Harry Enten, CNN

The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack

GOP Leads On Image, Handling Terrorism, Nation’s Prosperity

· Leave a Comment

Americans’ views of the two major U.S. political parties remain more negative than positive, but the Republican Party’s favorability is now slightly better than the Democratic Party’s. Both parties’ images have shifted slightly since last year, with the GOP’s favorable rating edging up four percentage points to 44% and the Democratic Party’s rating slipping by the same amount, to 39%. …

At a time when Americans are worried about inflation and the nation’s economy in general, the public sees the Republican Party as better able to keep the country prosperous, by a 10-point margin. The 51% of U.S. adults who believe the GOP is the better choice ties the highest on record for the party. CONTINUED

Megan Brenan, Gallup

The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack

Excess Death Rates for Republicans and Democrats During the COVID-19 Pandemic

· Leave a Comment

Political affiliation has emerged as a potential risk factor for COVID-19, amid evidence that Republican-leaning counties have had higher COVID-19 death rates than Democrat-leaning counties and evidence of a link between political party affiliation and vaccination views. This study constructs an individual-level dataset with political affiliation and excess death rates during the COVID-19 pandemic via a linkage of 2017 voter registration in Ohio and Florida to mortality data from 2018 to 2021. We estimate substantially higher excess death rates for registered Republicans when compared to registered Democrats, with almost all of the difference concentrated in the period after vaccines were widely available in our study states. CONTINUED

Jacob Wallace, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham & Jason L. Schwartz (Yale), National Bureau of Economic Research

The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack

How to Run Surveys: A Guide to Creating Your Own Identifying Variation and Revealing the Invisible

· Leave a Comment

… This paper offers guidance on the complete survey process, from the design of the questions and experiments to the recruitment of respondents and the collection of data to the analysis of survey responses. It covers issues related to the sampling process, selection and attrition, attention and carelessness, survey question design and measurement, response biases, and survey experiments. CONTINUED

Stefanie Stantcheva (Harvard), National Bureau of Economic Research

The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack

A Conversation With Lance Tarrance, GOP Polling Icon

· Leave a Comment

Lance Tarrance is one of the founding fathers of modern political polling. In this conversation, he talks about what drew him into the world of GOP politics, an inflection point working at the US Census Bureau, going to work for Ronald Reagan’s pollster, then opening up his own firm, The Tarrance Group.

Pro Politics podcast with Zac McCrary

The OPINION TODAY email newsletter is a concise daily rundown of significant new poll results and insightful analysis. It’s FREE. Sign up here: opiniontoday.substack